OBU eliminated in opening round
NW MISSOURI STATE 47, OUACHITA BAPTIST 17
ARKADELPHIA — The Northwest Missouri State Bearcats, long a small-college standard bearer, were nearly unstoppable as they advanced through the first round of the NCAA Division II Football Playoffs with a 47-17 victory over the Ouachita Baptist Tigers at Cliff Harris Stadium on Saturday.
Northwest Missouri junior quarterback Mike Hohensee used nine receivers to complete 23 of 30 passes for 322 yards and 2 touchdowns.
“They are a good football team,” OBU Coach Todd Knight said. “They’re in the playoffs, and they’re in a great league up there. They’re a solid football team. I don’t want to take anything away from them. They were deserving of the win today. They beat us, but we did some things today that really worked against us.”
Northwest Missouri has appeared in 18 consecutive Division II football playoffs out of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Association. OBU represented the Great American Conference.
Northwest Missouri (102) led 23-3 at halftime and started the second half with an eight-play, 75-yard drive, capped by Hohensee’s 5-yard touchdown pass to junior receiver Kashan Griffin with 10:41 left in the third quarter.
With a 13-yard touchdown pass from Hohensee to junior tight end Cole Hembrough and a 42-yard field goal by sophomore Cole Lammel, the Bearcats took a 40-3 lead into the fourth quarter.
“Anybody that watches us play and watches our league knows that we’re a pretty deserving playoff team,” Northwest Missouri Coach Rich Wright said. “We knew were going to come down and face a very good Ouachita Baptist team, and we just wanted to play to our level. I think we did a good job of that.”
OBU (11-1) scored on a 2-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Riley Harms to sophomore receiver Tucker Swoboda early in the fourth quarterback to pull within 40-10, but the Bearcats completed the scoring with a 37-yard touchdown run by junior running back Robert Rawie in the final minutes.
Harms completed 23 of 42 passes for 240 yards and 1 touchdown. He entered the game with an average of 14 pass attempts a game.
OBU was ranked fourth in Division II rushing yards with an average of 305.8 yards a game, but Northwest Missouri had given up an average of 56.0 rushing yards, second in Division II. It held OBU to 18 rushing yards.
Northwest Missouri, located in Maryville, Mo., near the borders of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, has been an athletic powerhouse for more than a generation. It won Division II national championships in 1998, 1999, 2009, 2013, 2015, and 2016. It finished runner-up in four consecutive championship games from 2005-08.
The Bearcats were stopped on their first drive of the game and held to a punt, but OBU’s early defensive performance was offset when Northwest Missouri sophomore linebacker Andrew Dumas knocked the ball from Harms’ grip. The fumble was scooped from the turf by sophomore defensive back Trevon Park and returned 18 yards to give the visitors a 7-0 lead with 8:55 left in the first quarter.
Harms said he thought he was down before he lost control of the football, but he also said he could have wrapped the ball more securely to prevent the possibility of missed call.
“I felt like I was down, but at the end of the day, I leave that to the officials,” Harms said. “I take responsibility. I’ve got to get two hands on it. I’ve got to hold onto the football.”
Wright said Park’s score set the tone.
“We kind of got momentum off that initial turnover returned for a touchdown,” Wright said. “After that, we really didn’t look back.”
Ouachita’s next possession was stopped at the Northwest Missouri 20, but junior Gabe Goodman responded with a 37-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 7-3.
Sophomore Cole Lammel answered for the Bearcats with 27-yard field goal with 14:54 left in the second quarter.
Northwest Missouri completed the first half with touchdown runs of 2 and 6 yards by freshman running back Jay Harris to lead 23-3 at halftime.
Hohensee completed 6 of 7 third-down passes for 94 yards in the first half.
“He was very technically sound,” OBU junior defensive back Andrew Hayes said. “Converting those weren’t easy. We tried to stop him every third down, but he kept succeeding. My hat’s off to him. They made some good plays, and we made too many mistakes.”
Knight said he was impressed by Northwest Missouri.
“Today, they were the best football team, and the best one we’ve played to date,” Knight said. “Rich does a super job. You know what he’s built up there. We could just go on and on and on about what a super job they do.”